


Someday

by thequidditchpitch_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Post War, Romance, The Quidditch Pitch: Eternity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-12
Updated: 2008-02-12
Packaged: 2018-10-27 08:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10805307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequidditchpitch_archivist/pseuds/thequidditchpitch_archivist
Summary: Harry and Hermione know who and what they want. It’s really just a problem of  when.





	Someday

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes: (originally posted 11/6/2006)  


* * *

He was kissing her.  The daydreams and hopes that he had kept deeply buried had come true.  He was kissing her.  And she was kissing him.  
  
It had started innocently enough in the empty study at 12 Grimmauld Place.  They had been sitting on the battered sofa, going over notes about Rowena Ravenclaw’s spell book—and possible horcrux—when she laughingly pointed out an ink stain on his cheek.    
  
It was good to hear her laugh, it happened so rarely in the year or so since Dumbledore’s funeral.  And even though they were talking about pieces of a homicidal lunatic’s soul, he had smiled at her.  A careful smile.  While it was true that he had never been an overly careful boy (as his numerous scars, scrapes and other physical reminders of his recklessness would attest to), when it came to her, he was now always careful.  Careful of her, and careful about her.    
  
And so, he consciously gave her the friendly smile that he used to mask the real feelings that flared rather dramatically whenever she was near him.  A smile that said, “Of course I care about you, you are my best friend.”   She saw the smile and knew what it really meant.  Her eyes softened with understanding, making them appear almost luminous.    
  
He expected her to respond in her usual way: to sigh, smile, shake her head slightly, and turn back to their work.  But, for whatever reason, that hadn’t happened.  Instead, she leaned forward to wipe the small smudge away with her fingers, accidentally brushing her thumb across the corner of his mouth in the process.  Her eyes had snapped wide open as she heard his quiet and quick gasp, and her hand had remained frozen in place, in a soft caress of his cheek and lower lip.  
  
How long they stayed in that position, he couldn’t guess.  It had most probably been only seconds, but that tiny sliver of time would remain in his memory for the rest of his life.  It was perfect.  
  
He might have yet been able to pull away from her, but she had then—oh, so softly—begun to move her thumb, bringing the gentle pad of it across his lower lip as the expression in her eyes had darkened.  He had closed his own eyes as a low groan had escaped him, and he felt her running her tiny, precise fingers across his face, tracing his lips and his jaw,  brushing lightly across his cheekbones, before they carefully lifted his glasses off and brushed across his eyebrows and even his eyelids.  
  
He had been afraid to even breathe, lest it disrupt her butterfly touches.  He felt her move on the sofa, never losing contact with him as she settled so close to him he could feel her heat.  He sighed as he felt her fingers lightly run through the hair that constantly fell in front of his eyes.  To be touched like this by her… it was more than he had ever imagined during the countless fevered dreams at night and bittersweet daydreams that had been his companions for the past year.    
  
At first, he had believed his love of her to be futile, the desperate kind of longing born out of youth for someone that you cannot have.  After all, he had been no stranger to having fits of infatuation fall upon him in unexpected ways.  But unlike with Cho and Ginny, he knew that he would never act on those newly-awakened feelings.   Even when her “relationship” with Ron had cooled back into friendship, he knew that it could never happen.  She was too good for him, he had thought to himself.  Too kind, too loving, too pretty, too smart.  
  
Perhaps he had put her on a bit of a pedestal, but he didn’t know how he could have avoided doing so.  After all, who wasn’t slightly in awe of Hermione Granger?  She deserved everything, and he could give her nothing but grief. And (he had hoped to himself), soon his infatuation with her would pass, just as his rather violent feelings for Cho and Ginny had quickly faded away.  But, they didn’t.  Every time she pored over books and scrolls searching for some spell to help him, he felt that tightening in his chest.  Every time she closed her eyes in exhaustion, his palms itched to smooth her hair back and cradle her in his arms.  Every time he or Ron could coax a snort of laughter out of her, he could feel a burst of happiness within him.  
  
So his feelings grew, day by day and week by week.  He had never been much for introspection, but even he could not be blind to what was happening.  And at about the same time, he began to see that perhaps his feelings were not his alone… that maybe she had also crossed the line from seeing him as only a friend to something more, something deeper and more beautiful and more frightening than friendship.    
  
It wasn’t ever spoken of, but it was hardly a secret.  Anyone could see the way the two of them watched each other, their eyes automatically seeking the other’s in any room.  The way they rarely touched, but always stood close enough to be just a breath away from the other.  The way that they could communicate more in a nod and a raised brow than others could in an hour of conversation.  The way they soothed each other’s nerves when they were together.  
  
He loved her.  He knew it, and he knew that she knew it as well.  How could she not?  She understood him like no other.  She knew, and she waited.  Waited for him to let her know when he was ready, ready to act on his feelings, and ready to accept her own.  
  
He had not given her that sign, not that night.  He was selfish enough to take her unwavering loyalty and friendship—he could not deny himself that much—but not so selfish as to let his need for her overtake his reason.  There was too much to do.  Too much that was expected of them all.  If he had to say why, he might have said that he didn’t trust himself.  If he were to let her love him, he wasn’t sure if he would be strong enough to do what might have to be done.  It shamed him to think that he would want to just grab her to him and run away, to forget the insanity of Voldemort and run as far as they could, so that he could wrap himself in her love and her body and let the rest of the wizarding world take care of its own problems.  It shamed him because it tempted him so much that it hurt.  
  
And so he had not given her that sign.  But nonetheless, her hands had touched his face and lips, the light touches causing his mouth to dry and his breath to catch.  And she brought her face next to his, her hands on his shoulders, and even though his eyes were closed he could see the way she was looking at him.  Her breath whispered against him for a second, and then he felt her lips on his, soft and nervous and beautiful.  
  
His arms wrapped themselves around her, pulling her to him until they seemed to become one person.  He couldn’t believe it.   He was kissing her.  And she was kissing him.  And it was everything and more than he had ever thought it would be.  Soft, light kisses became heavier, fuller.  Their mouths opened for each other, and they groaned as wet combined with heat.    
  
He didn’t know that it would be like this.  He had hoped.  He had fantasized.  But he hadn’t known. Their tongues twined again and again as they swallowed each others pants and moans and even their breath.  He hadn’t known that kissing her would be like losing himself so completely.  He <i>could</i> lose himself.  Lose himself in her arms and lips forever.  
  
At that realization, he pulled away from her.  Her eyes snapped open and she stared at him.  He drank in the way she looked to him at that moment, face flushed, lips swollen, and eyes filled with passion and… more.  He committed it to memory.  He would want to remember it.  
  
“Harry,” she whispered, her arms still wrapped around him.  “Harry, you <i>know</i>, right?  You know that I—”  
  
“Yes,” he quickly whispered, cutting her off.  “I know,” he continued, a sad smile on his face as he touched her cheek.  “And you know that I do, too.”  
  
She looked down, trying to keep him from seeing the tears that pooled in her eyes.  After a moment, she moved her hands to lightly cup his face and leaned forward to lay a soft, almost chaste kiss on his lips.  “Soon, we’ll be able to say it for real,” she whispered, the trust in her eyes so strong and bright that he could feel it in his heart.  
  
He lightly pulled her hands from his face and lay soft kisses on her palms before looking back into her eyes.  “Yes, we will.  I promise.  Someday.”  
  
Hermione just smiled at him, a smile that held all her hopes and fears and love for him.  “Someday,” she repeated.  “Someday soon.”

 

The End 


End file.
